The Decline of Newspapers

We have all heard about the demise of the newspaper business, and we've watched as papers try to charge more for less and less content. Meanwhile, one paper in the United States really stands out from the pack. The Wall Street Journal continues to add content. Of course, they also have a paid subscription model on-line, something other papers do not. One recent addition to the Wall Street Journal is a sports page. However, it's a sports page like no other. That's the hallmark of a great competitive strategy; do what others are not doing - be distinctive! The WSJ sports page focuses on a few distinctive pieces each day, one of which usually offers a statistical analysis of sports that is quite interesting. For instance, yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported on the link between spring training records and regular season records in baseball. The analysis shows that there is a very weak correlation between the win-loss records of pre-season and regular season.